By Leonardo Micua
Mayor Belen Fernandez has informed Education Secretary Edgardo Angara that Dagupan City’s public schools are facing a shortage of 346 classrooms as of January this year.
Fernandez met Angara during the Mayors’ Dialogue on Accelerating Classroom Building in Cities and Municipalities held on January 27 at the Makabagong San Juan Theater in Metro Manila, where proposed measures to speed up classroom construction were discussed, including Senator Bam Aquino’s proposed Classroom-Building Program Act.
The figure was based on an inventory conducted by the Dagupan City Schools Division and earlier presented during a Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) Summit, Fernandez said during her cable TV program “Sumbungan ng Bayan.”
Councilor Michael Fernandez, chair of the education committee of the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod, said the shortage will be reduced to 279 classrooms once the city government completes the ongoing construction of 79 classrooms.
Dagupan currently has 882 classrooms, at least 183 of which were built by the city government. An additional 149 condemned classrooms may still be rehabilitated to further ease the backlog.